Worth Dying For by Lee Childs

Finished on 7/24.

Cleverer readers than I probably figure out the mysterious cargo earlier in the story. I was down to the last quarter before the light dawned. In my own defense, Childs is very cagy about the whole thing. It resembles somewhat the device that Reichs used in 2006 Bones, italicized passages at the beginning of each chapter describing Tempe's experiences and thought processes after being buried alive - somewhere toward the end of the story. Here the narrative of the movement of the cargo is in the same relative time as the action taking place in nowhere, Nebraska. I would like to see the book in actual print - typically there are many cues in the print - type face, spacing, pagination - that help with interpretation. Leading text was bolded in places, but the translation to kindle format drops most spacing cues. I wonder if writers/publishers will start using actual printed cues - lines of dashes or asterisks or something - to replace spacing cues as more and more material is being directed to electronic media.

I have read a number of books in this series, but not faithfully or consistently. I like the character, Jack Reacher, very much (Tom Cruise?? Isn't he about seven inches too short? I have trouble with the idea of a short Jack Reacher.) The series device of making Reacher portable dodges the issue of back story and consistency with continuing characters almost completely. Marion Bradley simply ignored consistency in her Darkover books. She is reported to have said that it was her universe, and she would do what she wanted there - or words to that general effect. Still most series writers do depend on that frame of character and setting - Kinsey Milhone and fake Santa Barbara, Sharon McCone and San Francisco, V. I. Warshawsky and Chicago, Harry Dresden and a very different Chicago, Dave Robichaux and New Orleans, Jim Chee and the res, and on and on. The setting can be limiting, I suppose, like a sit-com which has exhausted the potential of the situation, but it makes it very easy for the reader to slip into another story because we already (usually) are familiar with the general set- up.

In this story there were allusions to the previous story - probably to hook readers like me into purchasing that book to find out ... . And is the mysterious Susan in Virginia recent or ancient history - or nonexistent?

This one seemed vaguely reminescent of another Reacher book that I read years ago. I seem to recall that he walked into a small isolated community somewhere in the desert southwest and walked away leaving it in flames behind him, but that is only a very vague memory.

Based on very little evidence, it seems to me that the Reacher stories are either "mission" stories or "coin-toss" stories, as in "left or right at the crossroads" - toss a coin and thereby hangs the tale. And this one appears to be a coin-toss, but the end casts some doubt on that.